


It Don't Mean a Thing

by quietpastelcolours



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, One Shot, Reunited and It Feels So Good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 07:09:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19329610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietpastelcolours/pseuds/quietpastelcolours
Summary: Betrayed on all sides, Satya Vaswani is on the run, holed up and desperate as the nets close in around her, and then help appears from a bridge long thought burnt.





	It Don't Mean a Thing

Satya took a moment to allow herself the luxury of wiping the sweat from her brow and listened hard. She couldn’t hear any approaching footsteps, nor the sounds of any voices. Ordinarily, this might have been a good thing, but to her it was terrifying.

Talon had already tried this trick on her - perhaps a few hours ago now, she’d taken the opportunity to try and run. They’d been waiting for her, and it was only a well-placed hardlight wall thrown up at the right time that had saved her. A hail of bullets had sprayed the ground either side of her, in a clear effort to herd her in the direction they wanted, but Satya had got her hardlight walls up and promptly retreated back into the small service station she’d taken refuge inside, when Talon’s proximity (and efforts to disable her vehicle) meant she’d be stupid to keep driving.

Talon agents were all she could see as she risked a small glance out of the window, but she knew Vishkar agents were there too, waiting in the wings to take custody of her once she’d been captured. They’d been chasing her since she had fled almost two weeks ago, and they weren’t inclined to let her escape. At first, she’d thought she might have had a chance. She had evaded initial attempts to find her and she’d timed her escape well, so the alarm wasn’t sounded until she’d already stolen a car - it was much easier than trying to get away on foot, even if it meant local police were also looking for her. 

It had all come to a head yesterday evening, when they’d caught up with her. She barely knew where she was - somewhere in America, on a long, empty expanse of highway with nothing but red dirt as far as the eye could see. There was a town somewhere near, which explained how the service station was operational, even in the apparent middle of nowhere. It was blisteringly hot in Wyoming at this time of year - it had to be closer to forty degrees than it was to thirty-five, she was sure of it, and she was rather thankful for the air-conditioning in the service station, even if she hated how isolated it was.

She had a vast hardlight shield encompassing the whole of the service station, and turrets fairly bristled from every wall. She was safe, but for how long? Already, she was in a war with Vishkar agents, who dissolved her shields, only for her to replace one with three more. She couldn’t keep this up forever.

Satya was terrified. 

She had to escape, somehow.

She had to think of  _ something. _ It was just… the red desert was so  _ open. _ So exposed, with nowhere to hide, and even if she was able to get into a vehicle, she wouldn't be able to lose her pursuers.

So used to the fearful pattern she’d fallen into, of checking her defenses and redoing her shields constantly, she wasn’t even remotely expecting it when an enormous explosion went off, close enough to knock her off her feet. Satya shrieked in panic and struggled to scramble up, gripping the counter in an effort to regain her feet.

What on earth? Were they going to use explosives to try and take out her shields?  _ Gods. _ Satya hurried to glance through a window, and to her confusion, saw nothing but Talon agents scattering, turning their backs to her. Right in the middle of their camped out position, was a huge billowing cloud of ugly black smoke. Satya’s brows furrowed and she ducked down and turned back towards the other side of the building to see what was happening there, in case of diversionary tactics, and found agents streaming away in all directions. Her confusion mounting, she waited for a moment for the trick, but there came nothing but another explosion, then another, and another. The whole building shook around her and she could hear screams, and she hit the floor, crafting a smaller shield around her in case the building collapsed, and waited, terrified. More explosions - of a different kind, smaller and less powerful, and covered by plenty of gunfire. 

And then - she almost didn’t believe it, but was the firefight… moving?

That was clearly what it was - something was drawing Talon’s fire, and she crawled around to her previous vantage point and found most of the agents moving away from the service station, towards an unknown something in the distance. She couldn’t see properly through the smoke, and panic gripped her insides. Should she make her move? She absolutely should. Satya tightened her knuckles around her photon projector and turned on her heel, heading for the nearest exit, her shields wrapped skintight around her body. She was in the back rooms of the service station, and judging from what’d she’d seen, if she raced through the dining area and through the back door that lead to the small outdoor eating area, she’d be able to duck around into a sheltered sort of partition and use her hardlight to craft a getaway vehicle and then, if she was lucky - oh,  _ Gods _ \- if she was lucky, she’d be able to flee, her escape covered by the smoke and Talon’s unknown assailant.

She ran, sprinting out from behind the counter and into the shop, and then a body loomed up at her and Satya screamed and spun, slamming the person into the ground with a blue swathe of light. 

And then, she recognised him.

Satya stopped dead as Jamie groaned and peeled himself up off the floor. 

“J-Jamie?” she asked shakily. “What are you - what are you doing here?”

“What’s it look like?” he snapped, rubbing his elbow. “We came t’help.”

Satya turned to look out the window, at the billowing smoke. “That was you?”

“Yeah. Hog’s out there, lurin’ ‘em away.” Jamie hurried towards her, grabbing her wrist and pulling her back to the storeroom from where she’d just come, and so utterly shocked by his sudden appearance, Satya let him tow her along. 

The second they were in the storeroom, with the door securely shut, Jamie did something even more unexpected - he stepped towards her, a furiously intense expression on his face, and kissed her.

Satya couldn’t comprehend it in the slightest, but she gasped against his mouth and her fingers curled around the straps of his harness as his arms closed round her back crushing her against him.

He broke the kiss in an instant, leaning his forehead against hers with a humourless laugh. “Bloody woman,” he said, voice rough. “What’d y’have t’go an’ get all tangled up with these fuckers for?”

Her eyes abruptly filled with tears and she blinked hard, refusing to let him see her cry. “Jamie… I-”

“Shh, love. Don’t worry. We’ll get y’outta here in one piece.”

She melted against him, the sheer comfort of having another person with her while she was scared out of her mind doing quite a lot to help, and then his words sank in.

“I don’t understand.” Her tone was dull. “Why help me? You said-”

“Yeah, I know what I said, an’ guess what? I was fuckin’ wrong, wasn’t I? Never shoulda left ya.” Jamie sounded furiously angry with himself, and Satya looked up at him, searching his face for the truth.

The last time she had seen him had been perhaps a month ago, when everything had gone horribly, miserably wrong. Vishkar had revealed her role to Overwatch and they, believing her complicity, had abandoned her to her fate as Vishkar tried to take her in, for Vishkar knew what Overwatch didn’t - she had originally gone there as a spy, yes, but she’d had a change of heart. She’d been with Overwatch for just over two years and she had grown to feel as though she were a part of a family, a group of people that she trusted implicitly and yet… she hadn’t told them what Vishkar was making her do. Instead she had lied, feeding Vishkar the kind of believable misinformation that hurt nobody, but then it had finally happened. Vishkar had found out and Sanjay, instead of revealing to Overwatch that she had double-crossed Vishkar, had only told them that she had been sent there as a spy. 

Her credibility destroyed, Satya hadn’t had the opportunity to make it right with anyone, least of all Jamie, before Vishkar had swooped in and picked her up for punishment and re-education. Thankfully, she’d managed to break out of their holding facility before they had started tampering with her mind, but now she was on the run, with no one in the world to turn to for help.

At least, or so she had thought.

Satya clung to Jamie’s harness, unwilling to let him go lest he disappear into the figment of her imagination she felt he had to be, because… why would he  _ be _ here, risking his life for her, when he thought she had betrayed him?

“What changed your mind?” she asked finally, fearful of the answer, and he gave her a grin.

“Saw ya. On TV. You’re all over the news, y’know.” There was a smile in his voice as he buried his nose into her hair, and a huge explosion outside distracted him for a moment before he continued. “Saw them all after ya, for days now. Realised y’were tellin’ the truth - Vishkar’d never sic Talon onto ya if y’were workin’ with ‘em still. Had a bloody time tryna get close, I can tell ya. Been tracking y’for days, an’ then y’went an’ holed y’self up here, with six billion bloody bastards surrounding the place! Nearly went off m’brain tryin’ t’work out how t’get in.”

“How did you get in?” Satya demanded. “My shields are up! You shouldn’t have-” her voice faded as Jamie let go of her long enough to take a small device from his pocket and waggle it at her. She knew it at once - she’d made the devices for all everyone at Overwatch, to prevent agents from getting trapped on the wrong side of her shields during missions. It prevented one from being blocked by the shield - using carefully crafted signals, it dissolved the bonds of hardlight but only that of hardlight in direct contact - so one could walk right through like a ghost through a wall, leaving the shields intact behind them. “You kept it,” she breathed, and he slipped a finger beneath her chin to tip her head up, his expression serious.

“Listen, Satya. I got a plan - me an’ Hog, we got a plan. We can get y’outta here, getcha safe, but... y’don’t hafta… y’don’t have t’trust us after the bullshit we pulled.”

Satya’s brows drew together but she laid her hand along his cheek. “I trust you,” she breathed. “I have for a long time. I don’t blame you for not trusting me. I  _ was _ a spy.”

He covered her hand in his and lifted it away from his face just long enough to kiss her palm softly. “Yeah, but y’stopped. Just like y’tried t’tell us. An’ now y’got all those bastards out there gunnin’ for ya.”

“I suppose I do,” she said softly, and he nodded decisively.

“Right, let’s go. Ready? Got a getaway plan an’ plenty of bombs.” Jamie stepped away from her to peer out the door, then turned and gave her an infectious grin. “Comin’?”

He held out his hand and Satya stepped forward and took it, a small glow igniting somewhere behind her breastbone, burning hot enough to steal her breath away. She remained in mortal danger and the future was uncertain, and at any moment after they stepped out that door they could be shot, but right now, in this moment, she glowed with the knowledge that now she wasn’t quite so alone.

Her fingers laced with his and he gave her a confident, gold-tinged grin, and together, they went.

**Author's Note:**

> a quick little one shot inspired by conversations with @sweetcrispyotter, whose comics are wonderful and always make me want to write too many new fics. this scene was one I couldn't get out of my head, so enjoy!


End file.
